from the text-versus-subtext dept

When LeaseWeb deleted Megaupload's servers this week, the second commenter to the post began a sentence with "If Dotcom is so darned eager to prove his innocence..." No need to read further, as there's already a big problem with that statement, and an anonymous commenter took most insightful comment of the week by pointing it out:

When you listen to what they're actually saying, what it sounds like to me is the "Door-in-the-face technique" in practice. It goes like this:

- I want something that the people I want it from aren't going to like.
- I ask them for something far, far worse. They say "no way!" and (metaphorically) slam the door in my face.
- I come back and ask them for what I really wanted all along. They give it to me, because I'm suddenly sounding a lot more reasonable.

Keeping this in mind, let's look at what Microsoft actually said:

After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

- What I want: DRM on all games in the form of a universally required activation system. But gamers hate DRM. They wouldn't accept that.
- What I ask for: always-online DRM requiring a persistent Internet connection. Gamers slam the door in my face and let me know that there's no way I'll sell any consoles with an onerous restriction like that.
- What I give them instead: DRM on all games in the form of a universally required activation system. Gamers buy my console because I "listened to them" and did away with the always-on Internet requirement, which I never intended to actually implement in the first place.
- I laugh all the way to the bank.

Retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;